Book Review: The Casual Vacancy

I loved this book because it is still J.K. Rowling in all of her easy-to-read, witty glory but it is so different from Harry Potter. A lot of people will probably hate this book for that very same reason. But I am absolutely thrilled that the author of one of the best fantasy series ever (my humble opinion and all that...) has proved her worth as an author yet again by putting together such a large book, in scope and in size, that captivates without a single touch of fantasy and some very heavy doses of bitter reality.

Yeah, I know, Harry Potter did touch on some very real subjects like death, abuse, and racism but the fantasy setting leavened the moral lessons for the young adult set. The Casual Vacancy pulls no such punches. The reality of life and all the disenchantment that can entail slaps you right across the face from the opening chapter. Like The Snow Child, I'm going to warn you that this book is not a happy-go-lucky, feel good book. It's bittersweet; although it didn't reduce me to uncontrollable sobs, it did make me rather pensive and misty-eyed. POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: It ends just like it begins, with a funeral.

It would be nearly impossible for me to accurately summarize the plot, there are so many story lines interwoven with each other and so many great (and sometimes gut-wrenchingly broken) characters involved. The plot revolves around the untimely death of a local councilman and the subsequent election for his empty council seat, but there is so much more involved. This is really a novel about relationships: parents and children, kids and their friends, in-laws, husbands and wives, and sometimes people with their memories.

Yep, life can suck and be hard and be so accurately transcribed to paper.

I was most definitely pleased with Ms. Rowling's foray into adult fiction. I say "bravo"!

Book Review: If On A Winter's Night A Traveler & One Hundred Names For Love

Going to review my book club books together since I wasn't an overwhelming fan of either of them. (Also, I thought it would be polite to save my dissection of these books until after discussing them semi-drunkenly with some fabulous ladies! Hello ladies!)

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If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

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This book is not an easy read and I dare anyone to defy me on that. It's hard to maintain your focus and the pronouns will make your head spin. Not to mention that there are at least eleven different plots contained within the covers of this tale. 

Seriously, Arthur Dent had a better grasp on the Universe than  I did on this plot.

It's originally written in Italian, so I'm willing to bet that some of the difficulty I had was in an overly snobbish translation, but this book is about a Reader (is it you?) and an Other Reader (she gets a name, Ludmilla) who cross paths after discovering that the latest work by Italo Calvino they began reading is incomplete. The subsequent attempts to attain a copy to finish the story are all met without success and only succeed in giving the Reader an additional nine stories which are also incomplete to add to his frustration. Every chapter is followed by the story in question and for a long time I didn't realize that the chapters were actually forming a cohesive plot. 

Oh, so this is going somewhere...

It is funny at times and the ending did have a moment of sharp wit that really thrilled me. Several of the incomplete stories are also very fascinating and hold a lot of promise that never gets fulfilled (obviously). I will never be recommending this book to anyone, unless someone comes to me desperately requesting something more brain-bending than Inception. Although, I do think someone should turn this into a very funny and slightly weird film. With Martin Freeman as the Reader, he just does adorably befuddled so well.

UPDATE: This book has progressively grown on me in the months since reading. Having read some more Italian authors since then, I've discovered that they are all just wonderfully weird. I now recommend this book quite often.

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One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing by Diane Ackerman

Not anything I would ever have picked up one my own and it never exactly won me over. I'm sure this is meant to be a lovely analysis of what a stroke can do to a family, but Diane Ackerman's account of the events surrounding and following her husband's, fellow author Paul West, stroke read more like a series of musings on language. I should also mention that I had absolutely emotional reaction to her words, me who cries at everything, nothing was stirred within me.

The author is a deft hand at the art of writing, but I think this would have made a much more impressive essay than a 300 page book. Just saying.